{"id":142995,"date":"2025-01-30T01:12:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-29T23:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/balticguide.ee\/?p=142995"},"modified":"2025-01-28T10:16:15","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T08:16:15","slug":"finns-and-estonians-are-both-sauna-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/balticguide.ee\/en\/finns-and-estonians-are-both-sauna-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Finns and Estonians are both Sauna people"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

 <\/p>\n

The first written records of Estonian saunas date back to the 13th century. But there must have been saunas in Estonia even earlier.<\/p>\n

The sauna was a place where, in addition to washing, people gave birth, treated illnesses and injuries, and washed the dead.<\/p>\n

Lutes were used to build relationships and communicate with ancestral spirits. The sauna was used to dry and smoke meat, fish and other natural ingredients.<\/p>\n

The sauna was often built by a body of water. The day of the sauna was Saturday. Today there are about 100,000 registered saunas in Estonia.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Estonian smoke sauna <\/b><\/h2>\n

The smoke sauna culture of southern Estonia is a UNESCO heritage site. The traditional Estonian smoke sauna is the pride of the country.<\/p>\n

The most distinctive smoke sauna was the ‘dung sauna’ at the eastern end of Saaremaa. It was customary to keep the sheep of the house in the sauna during the winter. Then, when the sauna was heated for people, the sheep were driven into the hall or outside.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A similar sauna culture<\/b><\/h2>\n

The sauna culture involves men and women bathing naked, but separately. The Estonians also use a viht, usually made of birch branches. In Estonia, the term ‘Finnish sauna’ is used to describe a sauna with a single or continuous heating system and a chimney stove. When smoke saunas were abandoned, the new type of sauna was modelled on its northern cousins. Nowadays, saunas are built in a way that is familiar to Finns, i.e. with steam rooms, washrooms and changing rooms.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Valev Kaldoja.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n

A man who loves to cook<\/b><\/h2>\n

Valev Kaldoja<\/b> takes his first sauna calmly, without anger. Little by little, the heat is increasing. Kaldoja has loved taking a sauna ever since he was a child. “We had a sauna at home in the country, and I liked to heat it. I also made my own pennants,” he says.<\/p>\n

Kaldoja is a frequent visitor to Tallinn’s public saunas. “I don’t have one favourite. Each of the three well-known saunas has its own good points.”<\/p>\n

Viht are important to the sauna man. “The birch smoke opens the sweat glands, and the oak smoke closes them. You can also use juniper to make a viht,” he says.<\/p>\n

Valev Kaldoja also tells an Estonian proverb about saunas: “Sauna minnakse vihaga ja tullakse \u00e4ra vihata”. The saying can be translated in two different ways: ‘You go to the sauna with anger and come out without anger’, or ‘You go to the sauna angry, but come out without anger’.<\/p>\n

After the sauna, the relaxed man enjoys another cold beer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  The first written records of Estonian saunas date back to the 13th century. But there must have been saunas … Read more<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":142928,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[24407,13259,14061,18369,22093,24404,24405,24406],"class_list":["post-142995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-beauty","tag-finnish-sauna-culture","tag-estonian-traditions","tag-south-estonia","tag-estonian-sauna","tag-estonian-sauna-culture","tag-valev-kaldoja","tag-smoke-sauna","tag-sauna-customs"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/balticguide.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/balticguide.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/balticguide.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balticguide.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balticguide.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142995"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/balticguide.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":142996,"href":"https:\/\/balticguide.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142995\/revisions\/142996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balticguide.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/balticguide.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balticguide.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balticguide.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}